Eye Has Not Seen
by singwing
Summary: Title ain't a typo! Iggy, having crash landed in Konoha in a thunderstorm and been taken in by the Hyuuga, has a brief conversation with Hinata. T for angst. Just a quick, plotless Maximum Ride-Naruto crossover oneshot.
1. Lonesome

Hesitantly, Hinata approached the boy. He'd fallen from the sky one day, and from the moment he'd awoken in the hospital, the winged one had been in the care of the Hyuuga family. He slept in the guest room, and was faultlessly polite; after a few weeks of familiarization with the kitchen, he'd started cooking for them.

It was dusk over Konoha, and the best view of the sunset could be had from where they were, on top of the Hokage monument; it felt like you were balancing on the grip-knob of a perfectly balanced shuriken, with the world stretching away from you on all sides, sky bending down to meet the earth that rose up to meet the sky.

"The others think you have the Byakugan," she said quietly. A jutsu had been cast on this boy who spoke a foreign language so that he could speak to them freely.

"The what?" he turned to fix his gaze on hers with uncanny accuracy.

"My family's technique," she explained. "360 degree vision, sight through solid objects, even chakra point sight in the more advanced levels."

There was a pause. "That's why you have to stay with us," she explained. "I thought you might want to know why, if you were wondering. The elders don't want a potential Byakugan user out there for anyone to kidnap and dissect."

A phantom shiver went through him, despite the warmth of the evening.

At length, he said, "Lucky."

"What?" Hinata didn't follow him.

"You're more lucky than you realize, to see everything."

She waited.

"Me," he said, as the wind picked up, "I'm as blind as I seem."


	2. Remain Here With Me

**AN: Okay, the masses have spoken. As every single review I've gotten on this story has asked for a continuation, here goes. By the by, the titles for the chapters are from an old hymnal of mine – they make for decent prompts in a pinch. In case anyone was wondering. **

**XXX**

Hinata reflected, with an acidity that surprised her, on the consequences of brooding incessantly in the rain.

_That's what you get for letting the dramatic impulse override common sense. _

Their household's mysterious guest had fallen ill. Days of the wettest weather in living memory had followed this boy to Konoha, and too much time on the Hokage monument without an umbrella or even a proper raincoat had taken its toll on him.

He lay, now, insensate on a futon in the guest room. Hanabi, distressed and refusing to show it, had stormed out of the house to practice in the family dojo while her elder sister remained at the foreigner's bedside. The nursing of the ill was a skill she had taken to with abandon during the short course offered in the Academy; her shyness and stutter mattered not when she knew what she needed to do and how to do it. Her classmates hadn't had the temperament for it, working themselves into a panic or whining with boredom while she simply sat and paid attention and smiled at her patients. Her father couldn't stand the sickbed either; it reminded him of those last fatal days of his wife, Hinata's and Hanabi's mother. He was out on clan business.

She checked the blond boy's temperature and pulse as smoothly as any professional nurse, gently squeezing his hand and waiting for the hesitant response. The heiress to the house was just wringing out the cold compress for his forehead when the screen door slid open and Neji loomed.

Hinata glanced up, and they gaze-locked for a few seconds before she averted her eyes. In the silence of the abandoned house, she finished changing the compress and shifted her weight back on her heels to brace herself for the inevitable angry conversation with her cousin.

Ever since the foreigner had refused to fight him, Neji had led the protests against his presence with unmatched fervor. His contempt for the blind teen was outranked only by his former conviction in the immutability of destiny, which he'd far from abandoned. Even now, with his opponent in a feverish catatonia, Hinata feared an outburst from her rash and inconsiderate relative.

Much to her surprise, Neji walked over and sat gracefully, putting them on equal ground. He watched, curiously intense, as she dissolved fever-reducing medications in warm broth and gently teased it down the foreigner's throat with a straw, smiling as he swallowed. In this small lamp-lit room with the sound of soft rain outside, the tiniest motion of his throat muscles was a triumph.

"Is there anything I can do?" he asked at length, voice uncharacteristically soft.

Hinata understood the urge to help, but there was only so much anyone could do for an illness such as this. She turned her head to look at him, pressed-together lips relaxing and her frown of concentration smoothing into a soft almost-smile.

"Stay with me. Watch. Pray."


End file.
